


I'm not you

by Hades



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Homophobia, Humor, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Sexual Content, Smut, one direction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:13:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hades/pseuds/Hades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Harry Styles' Boyfriend dies his life begins to unravel. But then he stumbles into a reality in which his boyfriend didn't die. Only here he has a different lover, who might be Harry's double, except for one tiny detail...</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm not you

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a true story.
> 
> But, not a true story about One Direction. I doubt this has ever happened to them. Unless it has happened in another universe, then...I guess It has happened. But it certainly hasn't happened in this universe.

Harry clenched his teeth together tighter than ever before. How did this make any sense at all? How did it happen? The questions pilled into Harry’s head and bombarded him, his head started to spin, the room seemed to lose all of its oxygen. Nothing like this could even be possible. It wasn’t possible, and yet. It had happened. He slammed his laptop down with such force that it was like he was trying to erase what he had just read from existence. He stood up, still dressed in his dressing gown, laptop in hand. He had come upstairs after breakfast to get dressed, he figured checking his Facebook was just as important as putting on clothes. Harry had not expected to read what he had read when he was just aimlessly looking at his profile. Still in shock Harry went downstairs, he passed his Mum who clearly saw the look of shock on his face.

‘Everything alright?’  
‘Yeah.’ Harry paused, without thinking the words left his mouth. ‘Mum. I think one of my friends is dead.’  
‘What?’ Anne asked incredulously, she couldn’t quite believe what she had just heard, but her shock was overcome with the need to make sure Harry was okay. ‘Did you know him well?’

Harry stammered his answer. This was it, his opportunity. Right here, right now he could tell his mother the truth, come clean. Tell her all about the relationship he was in. Was in. Ouch. He felt a sharp pain in his chest, he had lost everything. He never thought there would come a day where he would have to face up to losing the person he was in love with. And yet, here it is. March 23. A day that will now forever be burned into his heart, soul and mind. His thoughts were going a mile a minute, his brain no longer felt like it was apart of his body, they were now two separate beings, and as such his body no longer listened to his brain. 

‘No. Not really.’ Harry had said the words before he understood them. They were as clear as a bell ringing on a Sunday afternoon. Without realizing Harry had just closed off all avenues of help available to him.

‘Oh. Well, how did it happen?’

‘Urm’ Harry paused. This was the part that hurt him the most. ‘He, er..’ Harry paused again. ‘Died in his sleep’. Lying to his Mum wasn’t something Harry liked doing, it wasn’t even something he did often but in this conversation it had kept coming out of him.

‘Oh no! Wow. So young. Hey so, you off to work today? Or no, its your day off right?’

‘Right.’ 

The ease in which the conversation had turned from the worst day to ‘normal’, relaxed Harry a little bit. This was his life now. He had made his bed. He couldn’t go back on his word now and tell his Mum that he had in fact lied to her before and the reason that he didn't tell her the truth, the truth that was etching away at his soul. He could feel it banging away on his bones causing him to shake, Harry knew he had to hide the shaking from his mother so he sat down rather quickly. How could he tell his Mum that his boyfriend, a boyfriend he had kept in secret for over a year had killed himself? It didn’t even make sense to Harry yet, he needed to understand it before he told other people about it. 

Harry’s Mum said something about having to get ready for work and went to leave the room before checking one final time that her son was ‘Alright’. He lied, again. She felt content and left Harry alone. Alone with his thoughts, the same thoughts that were cascading around his head, banging against the sides of his brain, bringing on an onslaught of pain that resulted in a migraine. Harry rubbed his temples to try to stop the throbbing, no sooner than his hands had touched his temples did his whole body start to pulsate, as if Harry could now feel every cell of blood being pumped around his body. It felt like an entire theme park had just opened up inside of his body, butterflies began in his stomach, his fingertips felt numb then had a strange tingly sensation about them. His eyes started to sting, causing them to glow red. 

Harry ran upstairs once he heard the door to his mothers room close, and into his own room. Once into the threshold of his room he slowed down, unable to move fast. It was as if his entire body was now wading through a thick muddy substance. He eventually made it onto his bed and sat down, he put his laptop carefully down next to him, his body still pulsating with every movement. He reached for his phone, opened it to Text Messages, there was his name, Louis. Harry’s red eyes took it once step further, they created their own water and let it roll slowly away from them. Watching it barrel down his face, leaving a watery track behind it. Apparently the first drop of water wasn’t good enough so his eyes created more, and more, until eventually they had created so many that it had filled up his eyes and his vision was now blurry and yet now it seemed like the water was unable to go anywhere. His tears stuck behind and invisible wall. It was as if his body was rejecting crying over Louis because there was no proof that he was actually dead. No proof. That thought smashed Harry’s head with such clarity that it seemed to clear the tears away, the throbbing stopped at once. There was no proof that Louis was dead. Only a single post about it on Facebook. That could have been a joke. A sick joke, but a joke nonetheless.

Harry held his phone in his hand and tapped on Louis’s name. It was in this moment years later that if you asked Harry he would swear that time slowed down. He raised the phone to his ear, the butterflies in his stomach morphed into water buffalo stampeding around, the last butterfly was busy trying to avoid the stampede when the voice rang through Harry’s ears.

‘HELLO!’ Harry instantly felt gratified. See, he wasn’t dead, this was proof right here that he was still alive.  
‘Louis!’ Harry shouted back! The wave of panic was suddenly gone, Harry relaxed.  
‘Hi! How are you?’  
‘I’m goo-’ Harry was cut off. Cut off by something that made his bones begin to shake, as if his body was formed on a fault line and now it was about to break open.  
‘haaaaah! Got you! I’m not here. This is my answer phone, leave a message when you can!!’ Harry could almost hear the smile at the end of the message. Louis did love playing tricks on people. How could he have forgotten that his answer phone was one giant trick?! It had caught him out numerous times. But this time, it hurt a lot more.

It took Harry 10 minutes before he could semi recover from hearing Louis voice on his answer phone. After the 10 minutes passed he decided he still needed proof and so he called one of his friends up.

‘Hello?’ The pain was evident in his friends voice.   
‘Niall? Its Harry’  
‘Oh, hey. You alright mate?’  
‘Urm, yeah. Hey so, listen, have you, like, what is this thing I saw on Facebook abou-’

The line went dead. Harry was still left with no answers. There was a bubbling rage building inside of him, how could people joke around right now? Of course none of his friends knew about the relationship between Harry and Louis, Harry had been too afraid to tell anyone. He was afraid of people looking at him and judging him for being gay. Harry used to say that they lived in a society that said it was okay to tell people that they were going to hell, because they were expressing their rights. It was their ‘Freedom of Speech.' A society where the LGBTQ rights as human beings aren’t given to them because they defined love with just a fraction of a difference. He was afraid that the moment he came out as gay the perspective that people held of him would change. 

Harry pushed these thoughts out of his head, he still needed answers and they weren’t being given to him. So he decided to call Liam. Liam would know. Harry had 4 main friends and then just a random bunch of others that he still considered friends but he rarely did anything with them outside of college. Liam, Louis, Niall, Zayn and Harry were like the 4 musketeers...with one extra. They joked all the time about who was the “extra” one, only falling upon the person whose joke had failed or who didn’t go out that night. Little things. Little things that they would no longer be able to joke about, because there was now only 4 of them. Liam answered his phone on the second ring.

‘Harry?’  
‘Liam! Hey. I called Niall and-’  
‘He hung up on you?’  
‘Yeah...how’d you know?’  
‘He did the same to me. I take it you read that post on Facebook then?’  
‘Yeah. Have you called Lottie to find out why she posted that?’  
‘Har-’  
‘Liam...’  
‘Harry. Louis’s dead.’

A silence filled the air. The thumping in Harrys chest had ceased. Harry thought if it was possible for all of his organs to stop working at the same time. 

‘Harry? You alright?’  
‘mm? Urm, yeah. I don’t-’  
‘I know mate. Listen I spoke to Zayne and he wants us all to get together today, I think its a good idea. You know, not be alone and all that.’  
‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m not working today so..yeah.’  
‘Okay, well, I’ll call you later or something with a time.’  
‘Yeah.’  
“Harry, you going to be okay.’  
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll er, I’ll be fine.’

Now he had started lying to Liam. Harry cursed under his breath at his stupidity, why couldn’t he just tell someone the truth, he desperately wanted to, but, he couldn’t.

‘You know, Harry, if you want to talk I’m here. You know, like about anything.’  
‘Yeah, I know. Thanks mate. I’ll urm...I’ll see you later.  
‘Alr-’

Harry ended the call on Liam’s last word. Not waiting for the boy to finish. Harry had had enough, his worst fear had just been confirmed. Louis was dead. Harry sank back on his bed, his Mum called to him from downstairs, she was leaving to go to work. He was now completely alone.

Harry looked at his phone, he went to contacts and looked at Louis’s name, staring back at him. He tapped it and called him again.

‘HELLO! Hi! How are you? haaaaah! Got you! I’m not here. This is my answer phone, leave a message when you can!!’

Harry ended the call. Then rang again.

‘HELLO! Hi! How are you? haaaaah! Got you! I’m not here. This is my answer phone, leave a message when you can!!’

Harry’s eyes had begun to produce tears again, this time they cascaded down his face freely, no wall was stopping them now. Harry ended the call. Then rang again.

HELLO! Hi! How are you? haaaaah! Got you! I’m not here. This is my answer phone, leave a message when you can!!’

HELLO! Hi! How are you? haaaaah! Got you! I’m not here. This is my answer phone, leave a message when you can!!’

HELLO! Hi! How are you? haaaaah! Got you! I’m not here. This is my answer phone, leave a message when you can!!’

**Author's Note:**

> Leave comments/Kudos if you like it. I welcome any questions, comments and queries.
> 
> Also! I'm looking for a beta, so if you like the story and want to be my beta then let me know!! :)


End file.
